By Authority: Cummings for Congress, Ron Thompson, Treasurer

EDUCATION

Increasing Federal Funding for Public Education

I often return to the site of my childhood elementary school in South Baltimore.  As I sit there, next to railroad tracks and an elevated expressway, I thank God for the leaders who showed their faith in us and invested in our future.

I will never forget the words written on our school’s sign:  “We are now becoming what we are to be,” proclaimed that sign; and that simple motto became the roadmap for our lives.

The unwavering faith and dedication that our South Baltimore community invested in my learning were the most important lessons in my early life.  They created a vision of hope and opportunity that we dismiss at our peril today.

As a society, we must be clear about this critical fact. There is no professional calling more important than the sense of vocation that motivates those who teach our children - not our President’s nor our Governor’s - and certainly not my own.

Our teachers need and deserve all of the support that our society can provide, especially during these crushing economic times.  This fundamental truth drives my own work as we in the Congress debate how best to update and re-authorize the federal government’s role in funding our schools.

Early last year, both the Administration and the Congress realized that we could not wait for a political consensus to resolve all of the issues that a renewed Elementary and Secondary Education Act must address.  Due to the recession, a steep decline in state and local revenues threatens all of the educational gains that we have achieved in recent years.

To his credit, President Obama took the lead in addressing this challenge - proposing that a significant portion of the federal “stimulus” funding be invested in shoring up state and local support for our public schools.

The Congress agreed - and, as a result, Maryland’s public schools received an additional $720 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

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Assuring that All Public Schools are Adequately Funded

Even during these near-crippling economic times, this critical public support for our poorest children and those struggling to overcome educational disabilities is a necessary foundation for our future.  These same priorities should guide the President and Congress as we work to address the continuing challenges of national education policy.

We cannot meet our duty to America’s children - and build the future of our great country - unless we tighten our belts and eliminate the compelling disparities that public education now faces.

We must respond effectively to this assessment by the National Education Association:

“Federal funding should be targeted to schools with the highest concentration of poverty,” our nation’s teachers have advised.  “To build upon the historic investment through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal government should guarantee funding for critical federal programs, such as Title I of ESEA and the Individuals with Disabilities Act.”

Informed by the uplifting education that I, myself, received so long ago in that small, South Baltimore school, I must agree.

America’s past investment in public education was woefully inadequate - especially where poverty and racial prejudice conspired to deny our children the future that they deserve.  Now is the time for a renewed national commitment to the children we all should serve.

Educational excellence in this Information Age can longer remain simply an aspiration.  Our children need world class public schools today.

My own life story is a testament to this reality - taking me from a family of sharecroppers to the Congress of the United States in one generation.

So, too, are the lives of all the children who have been abandoned to this nation’s street corners and jails by our past educational failings.

This fundamental choice about this nation’s destiny is ours to make.  America is now becoming what we are to be.

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Paying for College

More than 200,000 academically-prepared students are denied the opportunity to gain a college education each year because they cannot afford the cost.  As a nation, we must do better than this.

That is why I strongly supported the new benefits that were included in the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 which was enacted by the new Democratically-led Congress. The legislation invested more than $20 billion in college financial aid, including more than $370 million for Maryland families, at no additional cost to taxpayers.

It was the single largest investment to help pay for college in more than 60 years.

It also is why, in July of last year, that I supported a new program to make college loan repayments more affordable by allowing borrowers to establish income-based caps on their monthly loan payments and by reducing interest rates and increasing Pell Grants for qualified low- and moderate-income students.

And I was deeply gratified to support expanded funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which increased the maximum Pell Grant scholarship for the 2009-2010 school year by $600 to $5,350 - and is reducing the interest rate on subsidized federal student loans.

These new benefits will make college more affordable for all Americans and their families - investing in the intellectual potential of our people that has always been the key to our prosperity.

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Better Utilizing the Capabilities of All of our Citizens

In 2007, along with the late John Murtha, Congressman from Pennsylvania, I worked to include a landmark investment in our Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Institutions (HBCU/MI) within the FY08 Defense Appropriations Bill, H.R. 3222.

This $37 million investment more than doubled our federal investment in technology and defense research at these important institutions of higher learning.

For too long, our minority institutions have been overlooked in the allocation of funds that will strengthen the critical fields of technology and defense.

Under our expanded program, students are competing for grants and contracts through the U.S. Department of Defense.  This increased federal funding, in turn, will expand opportunities for minorities who are preparing to enter the fields of math, science, and engineering.

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